Journal Article

Identification of Proteins in Streptococcus pneumoniae by Reverse Vaccinology and Genetic Diversity of These Proteins in Clinical Isolates

Argondizzo, Ana Paula Corrêa, de Miranda, Antonio Basílio, Pestana, Cristiane Pinheiro, Medeiros, Marco Alberto, Reis, Joice Neves, da Mota, Fabio Faria, Galler, Ricardo

2015

Overview

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Virulence-associated proteins common and conserved among all capsular types now represent the best strategy to combat pneumococcal infections. Our aim was to identify conserved targets in pneumococci that showed positive prediction for lipoprotein and extracellular subcellular location using bioinformatics programs and verify the distribution and the degree of conservation of these targets in pneumococci. These targets can be considered potential vaccine candidate to be evaluated in the future. A set of 13 targets were analyzed and confirmed the presence in all pneumococci tested. These 13 genes were highly conserved showing around >96 % of amino acid and nucleotide identity, but they were also present and show high identity in the closely related species Streptococcus mitis, Streptococcus oralis, and Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae. S. oralis clusters away from S. pneumoniae, while S. pseudopneumoniae and S. mitis cluster closer. The divergence between the selected targets was too small to be observed consistently in phylogenetic groups between the analyzed genomes of S. pneumoniae. The proteins analyzed fulfill two of the initial criteria of a vaccine candidate: targets are present in a variety of different pneumococci strains including different serotypes and are conserved among the samples evaluated.

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag,Springer US,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Amino acids / Anti-Bacterial Agents - therapeutic use / Bacteria / Bacterial proteins / Bacterial Proteins - genetics / Bacterial Proteins - immunology / Base Sequence / Biochemistry / Bioinformatics / Biotechnology / Chemistry / Chemistry and Materials Science / Computational Biology / Conserved Sequence / Databases, Protein / Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial - genetics / Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial - immunology / genes / Genetic diversity / genetic variation / Genome, Bacterial / Humans / lipoproteins / Molecular Sequence Annotation / Molecular Sequence Data / morbidity / mortality / Phylogeny / Pneumococcal Infections - drug therapy / Pneumococcal Infections - immunology / Pneumococcal Infections - microbiology / Pneumococcal Infections - prevention & control / Pneumococcal Vaccines - genetics / Pneumococcal Vaccines - immunology / Polymorphism, Genetic / prediction / Proteins / serotypes / Streptococcus - classification / Streptococcus - drug effects / Streptococcus - immunology / Streptococcus - isolation & purification / Streptococcus mitis / Streptococcus mitis - classification / Streptococcus mitis - drug effects / Streptococcus mitis - immunology / Streptococcus mitis - isolation & purification / Streptococcus oralis / Streptococcus oralis - classification / Streptococcus oralis - drug effects / Streptococcus oralis - immunology / Streptococcus oralis - isolation & purification / Streptococcus pneumoniae / Streptococcus pneumoniae - classification / Streptococcus pneumoniae - drug effects / Streptococcus pneumoniae - immunology / Streptococcus pneumoniae - isolation & purification / Vaccines